1. Field
The following description relates generally to network communications, and more particularly to providing an object-based transport layer protocol.
2. Background
Networks allow communication between a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by wireless and/or wired media. Typical network architectures comprise multiple communication layers that facilitate communicating between the plurality of nodes. In one example, a network architecture can comprise media layers (e.g., a physical layer, data link layer, network layer, etc.) host layers (e.g., transport layer, session layer, presentation layer, application layer, etc.), and/or the like, that the nodes can utilize for communicating. For example, the media layers can facilitate transmitting low level data over physical media, such as a network cable, wireless signal, and/or the like, and the host layers can interpret the low level data for presenting to an application. In an example, the transport layer in Internet architecture can include a transmission control protocol (TCP), which provides ordered delivery of a stream of bytes (related to upper layers) from one node on a network to another node on the network.
At a network layer, for example, internet protocol (IP) can be utilized to establish connection between the nodes (e.g., via a router or a direct connection), and route data among the nodes. For example, the IP layer can generate packets of data from a TCP layer and include one or more headers in the packets to facilitate routing. In addition, TCP can manage the IP connection ensuring reliable delivery of the ordered stream of bytes. For example, TCP can also provide retransmission mechanisms for packets that are not properly received, flow control to limit a transmission rate for reliability, and congestion control to protect the network from receiving incoming data above a threshold level. In another example, a transport layer can be a user datagram protocol (UDP), which is less robust than TCP, offering no retransmission, flow control, or congestion control.
Enhancements to network communications have allowed network devices to simultaneously leverage various network technologies to provide multiple connections to the Internet or another network. In this regard, a network device, at any given point in time, can have one or multiple different Internet or other network connections through different networks (and/or network architectures). For example, a network device can have one or more third generation partnership project (3GPP) connections along with one or more WiFi connections, which can be utilized to access similar or different Internet content from one or more disparate network devices. In addition, network devices can simultaneously receive data over the Internet or another network for multiple applications, and a user of the network device can switch among the applications rendering requested data no longer necessary (at least for the time being). TCP, UDP, and other transport layer protocols are ill-equipped to optimize such functionality.